A Nearly Normal Life

Rating:
Summary: Five stars are not enough...
Review: I don't write many reviews anymore, who has time? However, this book stood out so much above the rest I've read lately that I just had to share. The book is about a polio survivor, the 50's, the discovery of the vaccine and oh so much more. It's about living the life you were handed, not the want you thought you were going to get.

His epilogue is pure poetry. An example: "Life continues to change. New things surface; old wounds hidden by bigger wounds show up when the bigger wounds are healed; new clusters of misgivings and confusion take shape to replace old clusters of exhausted adjustments. New things come along to be accepted with grace and peace. The disability and its challenges continue to evolve, and one must achieve acceptance and grace and peace again and again, day after day."

I highly recommend this book to everyone. I read about 5 books a week and this book is in my top 20 of all time.

Rating:
Summary: Five stars are not enough...
Review: I don't write many reviews anymore, who has time? However, this book stood out so much above the rest I've read lately that I just had to share. The book is about a polio survivor, the 50's, the discovery of the vaccine and oh so much more. It's about living the life you were handed, not the want you thought you were going to get.

His epilogue is pure poetry. An example: "Life continues to change. New things surface; old wounds hidden by bigger wounds show up when the bigger wounds are healed; new clusters of misgivings and confusion take shape to replace old clusters of exhausted adjustments. New things come along to be accepted with grace and peace. The disability and its challenges continue to evolve, and one must achieve acceptance and grace and peace again and again, day after day."

I highly recommend this book to everyone. I read about 5 books a week and this book is in my top 20 of all time.

Rating:
Summary: Read This Book-- It's Good.
Review: No matter how great a person's chances are of getting ill or injured, everybody always thinks "it's never going to happen to me." Charles L. Mee was no different than everybody else in the 1950s who thought that they would not get polio; he thought that it would be somebody else who would catch the disease. In his touching and witty memoir, A Nearly Normal Life, Mee tells of his arduous struggle to overcome his devastating case of polio during his teenage years; Mee was one of the millions who were afflicted with spinal polio during the epidemic of the 1950s. The author vividly recounts his battle against paralysis and death, as well as his endeavor to recover and return to the normalcy that the 1950s culture emphasized. Not only does the memoir give the reader a lucid and detailed picture of the Eisenhower years, but it is also a reflective essay about America in the 1950s, polio,and the American culture that relentlessly advocated the idea of being "normal." For those of us who did not live through the fifties, A Nearly Normal Life provides a good description of what life was like for the average middle-class American family.

Rating:
Summary: A nearly perfect book
Review: Until his 14th summer, Charles Mee's world seemed safe and unshakable --- secure in a small Midwestern town, surrounded by a loving family, winning praise for his athletic prowess and on the verge of getting his first kiss. And then, suddenly, everything changed. Mee's exposure to the polio virus didn't just infect him --- it profoundly altered his reality, forever changing his perceptions of himself, his family and the way the world works. In this beautiful, heartbreaking tale, Mee poignantly recounts the story of the sick, lonely, frightened child he was and his transformation to the man he is today --- brilliant, creative, funny and "nearly normal."